


The Hearse in the Driveway

by bunnyfication



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Character Turned Into Vampire, F/M, M/M, Murder, POV Multiple, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23358823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnyfication/pseuds/bunnyfication
Summary: Taako is dead. Lup and Barry won’t just take that lying down. Neither, as it happens, will he. Or, it all started with the hearse on the driveway.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	1. Barry

**Author's Note:**

> So, a long while ago I saw this TAZ animatic over a gag from MBMBAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGY3b7ngV10, and was very charmed by this domestic vampire au setting. Then my brain ran away with "But why would Lup and Barry be the neighbours and not seem to know Kravitz and Taako...?" and this is NOT really that domestic vampire story. (See end notes for more spoilery warnings)  
> Oh, and this is totally unbetaed, hope it's readable anyway.

The problem with life is that there no beginnings or endings, and as such you never know where to start.

So, you could say it all started with the hearse, parked on the end of the driveway on a quiet suburbian street, raising the eyebrows of the respectable neighbourhood.

But that’s just one option.

*

Almost a hundred years before that, there’s a dingy kitchen in a tiny one room apartment it’s three occupants can just barely afford, filled with the scent of soup from the beat up pot on the stove, an elf humming as he stirs it, frowning thoughtfully down at the soup.

He knows what would make it better, what would make it _phenomenal_ , but they can’t afford those ingredients, so a bit more pepper will have to do.

He’s just about to reach for the mill as the door opens.

“That you, Lup and Luci?” he calls out. Wondering just how many brick like law books Lup had to help carry this time.

He’s such a good roommate, sending his brawny sister to escort their nerdy law student from the library, where she would have just been kicked out from… one day, he’s sure of it, Lucrecia will be a real lawyer and it will be _terrifying_ , good on her.

There’s no answer though, so he frowns, taking the two steps that will take him out of the kitchen and into the hall. There’s Lup, standing still in front of the door with her hair hanging over her face, her breathing off.

“Lup?” Taako asks, “did something happen? Didn’t you find her?”

He’s not worried, exactly. The streets around here might not be safe, exactly, but Lup can deal with it. They’ve been dealing with it all their lives.

Lup lifts her head, her eyes terrifyingly lost.

“Taako, she’s…” she shudders, eyes going glassy as she gasps, springing forward to grasp him in a crushing hug, as he just stands there.

“What?” he asks, trying to laugh because Luci cannot be hurt, she’s almost as tough as the two of them. The laughter sticks in his throat, because Lup is shaking, tears soaking quietly into his shirt.

Years later, when Lup mentions she’s going to become a cop, he makes a face but doesn’t say anything, because he knows why. Because he saw her rage while the police investigating Lucretia’s murder shrugged their shoulders. No leads, nothing we can do, they said, their eyes indifferent. She wasn’t anyone worth the bother, unsaid but loud in the air.

So, he gets it.

*

All that was a hundred years ago, and only tangentially relevant to the hearse situation, so let’s move forward a fair bit. Elves live long lives after all, a hundred years is small change for them. So let’s go a lot closer, say, a couple of years before the corpse mobile appears to scandalise the neighbourhood? Sounds about right.

Here’s Barry Bluejeans at the morgue, feeling odd out of his work clothes, watching his girlfriend cast dispel magic at the body on the slab again and again, her face frozen into an expression of blank disbelief.

His gaze keeps straying to the body, and he knows it hasn’t hit home for him either, because he’s thinking like he would if he was here in professional capacity, clinically. Blood loss, he thinks, can’t see any obvious injuries above the sheet that covers most of it.

Pathologist Eirene Wray catches his eye, nodding faintly towards Lup who is starting to get a glassy look in her eyes, one corner of her mouth twitching. Eirene looks uncomfortable, and vaguely apologetic, her usually jovial face crumpled in concern.

Barry recalls her admitting, over midnight coffee, how she never knows how to deal with the families. The corpses, by comparison, are easy. No matter how gruesome, one knows where one sits with them. They’re beyond hurt. Living people, on the other hand…

Oh.

That’s them now. The family.

A week later, he waits for her at the memorial hall, after everyone else has stepped out. Lup is standing next to the altar surrounded by flower arrangements in a riot of colours ( _I don’t care_ , she’d said, and then, _everything except white_ ), her hands plucking nervously at a single bloom of a yellow carnation, each petal lined in lurid pink.

She hasn’t cried yet, and her face is still, stony.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she says quietly, pulls out another petal and lets it fall on the marble floor.

Barry makes an agreeing noise, and furtively rubs his nose on his sleeve.

Lup turns, abruptly, scowling at him, at the mound and flowers, the hall around them.

“For gods’ sakes Barry blow your nose!” she snaps, and he does, feeling embarrassed about his wet face, his quiet tears during the memorial ceremony. He knows, logically, that sorrow hits people differently, but it still seems wrong, for him to be crying while she stands at his side, dry-eyed.

She shakes her head at him, wearily, before her thumbs settle on his face, wiping at the tears.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she whispers again, a shudder going through her. “The body… I know it wasn’t fake, it was him, but Barry. I should have _known_. We were twins, I should have!”

He voice is still quiet, but it’s like the words are torn out of her, her face twisting momentarily before it stills like the surface of water.

She steps back, staring dully at the flowers, reaching out to poke the toe of her shoe at one wreath of lilies, glittery purple.

“It still doesn’t feel like he’s gone,” she says.

*

Two months later, they are standing over a corpse again, this time as agent Lup Lup and pathologist Barry Bluejeans, business as usual.

On the ground between them, lying on the bottom of a deep pit on top of an equally dead giant spider, is the lifeless body of a drow. He, and the spider, are impaled on one of the large wooden spikes lining the bottom of the pit.

Lup is wearing black, as she has since the funeral, her face still and expressionless as she looks down at the remains of the unfortunate man.

“Cause of death is… well, it’s pretty obvious?” Barry says, standing up and dusting the knees of his work jeans. “It could have been an accident, I suppose?” he adds dubiously.

Lup nods.

“Talked to a ranger just now,” she says, “says he has seen a dude who matched the description of this one skulking about, thought he may have been a poacher, but he didn’t have evidence. Maybe this guy forgot one of his own traps?”

“Huh,” Barry says, “Hunting giant spiders?”

“The spider is wearing a collar with a nametag,” Lup points out patiently, and when Barry looks up there is a small smile hovering on her lips. He hasn’t seen her smile since the funeral.

“Oh, it is.” He says, wondering how on earth he missed that. Not his best perception check there…

Lup sighs and takes off her sunglasses. Underneath, the dark circles under her eyes are like a fresh bruise. She doesn’t make a joke, even though there’s plenty of material here. Instead, she leans back on the earthen wall of the pit and frowns down at the dead drow.

Barry has known his girlfriend long enough to recognize when she is working up to something.

“What is it?” he asks, faintly dreading the answer.

“I got a call,” Lup says, grimly, and for a moment Barry thinks it’s about Taako, that they’ve found some new information, but then she continues. “They offered me a gig. Undercover work, long term.”

Oh.

“I said yes,” she says and looks up at him, almost defiant, and then shrugs. “They told me to think about it but Barry, you know I… it’d be nice, being someone else, for a while. Maybe a long while. Sure as hell don’t know how to be who I was without him,” She adds quietly, under her breath.

Barry nods, a tight painful knot in his chest. He walks over, hesitates just a moment, and then puts a hand on her arm.

“I get that,” he says, and bites his lip on _but what do I do_. He lost a friend, and it’s bad enough. She lost someone who was always with her, for her entire life.

Lup takes a deep breath, and then smiles at him, though it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I wanted to tell you first,” she says.

“Is… is there anything I can do?” Barry asks, and then, before he can think better of it: “can I come with you?”

He curses himself as she blinks at him. If she can’t handle being herself, she probably doesn’t want him around either. Sure, they had a good thing, he thought, but this is…

“Yeah, sure,” Lup says, still blinking, before her lashes lower over her eyes and she clears her throat. “It’ll be dangerous work, though. Lots of infiltrating paranoid organisations, dark magic, that sort of thing.”

“Dark magic?” Barry repeats.

Lup glances at him, and there is, again, the barest of smiles lurking at the corner of her mouth.

“Mm, real dark magic. Sure you can handle that, Bluejeans?”

The undercover job is, as he soon finds out, to find and infiltrate criminal necromancy rings. Lup actually laughs at him after she tells him and then says he shouldn’t show that face to the higher ups, lest he end up under investigation himself.

Which is completely unfair. Barry has never done any _criminal_ necromancy. Well, nothing that hurt anyone, at least.

“I heard what the details were, and I thought, that’s a job made for us,” Lup tells him later, slightly drunk on vodka shots after their goodbye party (the people at the precinct think they are moving away, transferring to a different city). She’s practically melting against his side where he’s supporting her as they approach the street.

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it,” Barry agrees, distracted by scanning for taxis and trying to hold up Lup’s unsteady weight.

She staggers and laughs a little, lowly.  
“Like destiny,” she says.


	2. Kravitz

Still kinda far off, right? Not getting the connection? Patience, patience. The weave of destiny is no simple matter, you know. It’s _all_ connected. But we are getting close.

Say…here is Kravitz, at Fantasy Garden, being flirted by a blond elf chef, who appeared out of nowhere to wrest the plate of squid ink pasta from Kravitz’ server.

The elf keeps grating cheese onto his pasta. He should have said stop long ago, but the elf has green eyes like new leaves in spring, and a slightly sarcastic but warm voice. Kravitz is transfixed.

The elf grins at him, shark-like, like if he knows exactly what he is doing, and his bright eyes flick down to the veritable mountain of cheese burying the plate of pasta. Some of it falls down onto the table in a tiny avalanche of parmesan.

“So, more cheese?” he says, drawing the word out in a way that inexplicably makes Kravitz’ face heat up like a schoolgirl’s, his heart skipping beat. He’s sure the pale areas on his face have gone pink.

The elf leans on the table, somehow managing to look dashing in the chef’s coat and a hair net.

“Uh,” Kravitz says, glancing down at the plate. That is, definitely, more cheese that pasta at this point. “Yes, please,” he says.

When the manager turns up, her face pinched and flustered as she inquires why chef Taako had left his station, the blond elf explains blithely that Kravitz had a complaint (he hadn’t) but they’d sorted that all out, hadn’t they? He winks at Kravitz, who blushes again.

The manager sighs, clearly not buying it, and ushers the chef back into the kitchen. Not before he has slipped a phone number in Kravitz’ pocket though, as he realizes after eating the very cheesy pasta and leaving the restaurant. He even put several X’s after it.  
  
*

He almost loses the number from keeping it in his pocket too long, until it inevitably gets almost ruined. It’s that scare, staring down at the soggy scrap of paper with the X’s blurred by bloodstains, that makes the decision for him. What has he got to lose, anyway?

On their first date, they go to a wine and pottery place, of all things.

Kravitz agonises over what to wear, if vest and tie is too fancy, seems pretentious. It all ends up clashing with the rust-coloured aprons sporting the logo of the pottery and wine place anyway.

Taako says the tiny skulls on Kravitz’ tie are cute. Kravitz isn’t entirely sure he isn’t made fun of, just a little. But Taako also pets the tie, and looks at him from under his lashes, making Kravitz’ mouth go dry and his words stutter.

Taako grins, like he knows, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

“Ok, goth boy, let me show you how this is done,” he drawls, and commences to first completely ignore the instructor and then hang over Kravitz’ shoulder to tell him what to do right in his ear. Somehow, he ends up missing most of the official instruction as well.

Taako’s hands, while he’s supposedly showing Kravitz how to work the clay, are shockingly cold. He has long fingers, and the clay outlines every old scar and burn mark on his hands. A chef’s hands.

Kravitz has scars too, from catching a knife, broken glass, fangs, from having broken his fingers against bone. He wears gloves, sometimes, lest people notice. Taako doesn’t ask about the scars. He claims that having cold hands is great for the clay, instead.

They don’t actually finish anything presentable by the time they leave, but it’s a better date than Kravitz has had in ages. He tries not to be too hopeful, because his first dates often go well. It’s when people find out about his job that things get awkward.

*

He waits for Taako to ask, but he doesn’t, not on their second date which is to a nice restaurant Kravitz thought was ok but Taako claims the food is inedible at.

Kravitz tries not to feel discouraged as Taako dissects his plate of bouillabaisse. He’s a chef, of course he’s going to be picky. He must have not been very successful, because Taako gives him a long look and puts down the silverware on the white tablecloth, where they leave stains on it.

“Ok, don’t make that face,” he says, rolling his eyes and then leaning over to pat Kravitz’ hand. “It’s not your fault the cooks here can’t tell entrecote from their own ass.”

Kravitz almost chokes on his bite of ratatouille.

“Sometime I’ll serve you some proper food, and not like that shit at Fantasy Garden either,” Taako proclaims with a sniff.

“Come on, let’s blow this joint and go have some fun,” he says, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

Kravitz didn’t know there was a roller disco nearby. He didn’t know there were roller discos, still, period. Taako looks right at home, more than he did at the restaurant, the spinning light from the disco ball reflecting off the sequins on his pants, and the fringes on his sweater swaying along the movements of his body as he skates.

Kravitz used to do some ice skating, a very long time ago, but he’s uncertain on the rollers, and Taako has to save him several times from taking a nasty spill before Kravitz gets the hang of it.

“Ya boy was once a beginner too,” he says, a bit superciliously, after the third time Kravitz almost falls on his ass and Taako’s mage hand gently pushes him back into balance. The mage hand pats him, just high enough to technically be on his back.

“ _My_ teacher would just let me fall and laugh, so you’re welcome,” he says, seemingly distracted by trying to nudge Kravitz into a better posture. He tries not to think about how close they are, or of Taako’s hands on his hips.

“She’d say pain was the best teacher, which is bullshit if you ask me, especially from someone who’d willingly do roller derby, of all needlessly dangerous foolhardy things…” he’s smiling a little as he says it, a soft thing that hovers on his lips. That’s new, Kravitz thinks.

“Oh?” Kravitz asks, dumbly, dazzled by the lights and the closeness and that smile.

Taako blinks at him, startled, and then it’s like a curtain falling, his smile going fake and his eyes glittering and hard.

“Nothing, just got lost in the past there a moment. That was rude. Ok, let’s see what you’ve got!” he says and lets go abruptly, skating away from Kravitz. He windmills his arms desperately, somehow regaining his balance again.

“See, it’s not so hard!” Taako exclaims, still grinning at him.

*

He doesn’t talk about his past, Kravitz figures out over the span of the next few months. And he doesn’t really ask about Kravitz’ either.

He still expects Taako to comment on the scars the first time he sees Kravitz shirtless. His upper body features a lot of the more obvious ones, because that’s where people’s vital organs are, and a lot of people have tried to kill him. A few got close. And then of course there are the scars from defence wounds on his arms. He doesn’t only wear long sleeves habitually to be stylish. 

So Kravitz stands there, in his bedroom with the pale spot above the bed where Taako insisted he take down the raven sculpture because _that’s weird dude, like your spooky goddess is watching us having sex or something,_ with all his ugly scars on full display, and expects the questions he won’t be able to answer.

But Taako only raises an eyebrow at the marks, his gaze gliding over Kravitz’ abs and chest, ending at his face. There’s a knowing expression on his face, but then he sits down on the bed, legs crossed, and tilts his head at a regal angle.

“Acceptable,” he proclaims, “But what’s the hold up with the rest of it? Chop chop, we don’t have all evening here.”

Kravitz stares at Taako and his snooty pose and starts laughing helplessly.

Taako clicks his tongue at him, affronted, and then somehow tackles him onto the bed and gets to work at divesting Kravitz of him pants. That’s. Pretty hot. Kravitz is very effectively distracted.

In any case, the scars remain undiscussed, and Kravitz can’t bring himself to take up the matter. In some ways, he has always been a coward.

The closest thing is that night, in the afterglow, when Taako trails a finger along the biggest scar, one that bisects Kravitz’ ribs towards his heart, and asks, in an idle tone:

“That looks like it hurt. Anyone I need to look up for a little discussion?”

Kravitz is still trying to catch his breath and finds himself inexplicably warmed that Taako would feel like defending him.

“Oh, no, I took care of that,” he says.

“Oh, good,” Taako hums, rolling over to kiss the closest part of Kravitz he can reach, which as it happens is a good spot for him, so he squeaks. Taako looks up at him, his eyes glowing with surprise and delight, and then they don’t talk much for a while again.

*

They don’t meet that often, because Taako works most nights and sleeps during the day, and Kravitz has his own job that often keeps him up at nights too. More than once one of them has to cancel, because Kravitz doesn’t work on a set schedule, and apparently neither do chefs.

“Someone’s always “sick”, you know, as in they had a party the night before,” Taako explains, after one such time. “And then the manager will be like, “who do we call? Oh yeah Taako!” like I have nothing better to do.”

Kravitz wonders if the lifestyle Taako leads is good for him, because he looks pale sometimes, with deep shadows under his eyes and his hands like ice.

Those times, he’s mercurial, snapping at Kravitz one moment and snuggling up to him in the next.

And then other times…

“I’m a nocturnal, baby,” Taako says with a nearly manic grin, on their sixth date, after Kravitz comments on how he seemed very energetic. He gets like that sometimes too, bright and present and loud, nearly vibrating in place.

They go dancing again, somewhere with loud music and flashing lights.

*

When they meet again a few weeks later, Taako looks tired once more, his eyes dull and his skin greyish.

They go to a botanical greenhouse that is having a special late-night event to show their night blooming water lilies.

“You’re such a dork,” Taako says, shaking his head as they stand at the edge of the central pond under a spindly rosette of glass and metal that makes up the roof of the old greenhouse. The round glass lamps up above have a bluish light imitating the moon, accompanied by little fake-fire lanterns among the greenery at the sides of the winding path through the greenhouse. Whoever designed the event was clearly going for a romantic effect.

Maybe. Maybe it is a bit too silly, Kravitz thinks guiltily, glancing at Taako at his side.

He looks up from the lilies and gives Kravitz a wan smile.

“Cute though,” Taako says with a small smirk, that widens at whatever he sees on Kravitz’ face. “Still, I have a friend who must never find out about this place, or we’ll never get him out again,” he adds with a grimace. “Anyway—” he says, begins to turn and then stumbles, blinking rapidly.

“Woah,” Taako says, as Kravitz catches him. “Dizzy,” he says and laughs, like it’s a joke.

“You ok?” Kravitz asks, and Taako pats the arm around him.

“Yes yes, ya boy is juuust peachy. And dizzy.”

“Do you need anything?” Kravitz asks, worried. This isn’t the first time he has been unsteady, though this seems worse than before.

Taako sighs, sinking against him a little. His skin is cool even through his blouse, worryingly cold.

“Just had a shitty time at work, last night, and then slept badly. Might be coming down with something too,” he says, adding a fake cough as an afterthought.

Kravitz considers calling him out on it, maybe asking… he’s not sure what to ask about. Something is wrong here, but he has a feeling if he pushes Taako will push right back, hard. He doesn’t talk about his past, or his private life. Kravitz doesn’t even know where he lives.

“You should rest,” he says instead, feeling like a lousy coward. “Do you… want me to walk you there? I mean, I’d like to, to see you get home safe.”

“Aww, silly,” Taako says, grinning at him over his shoulder. “But, I guess, whatever.”

Kravitz isn’t sure what he expected to see at the end of their ride on his motorcycle (he’d hesitated, but Taako swore he absolutely wasn’t about to fall off and in fact he felt totally better in the outside air. Mostly). The house they stop in front of is surrounded by a high brick fence, topped in nasty looking spikes. Through the wrought iron gate, Kravitz can just see a Victorian style mansion, dark and looming in the moonlight.

“Well, we’re here,” Taako says gleefully. “I’d invite you in for a nightcap, but some of my roommates actually sleep at night.”

They both look at the house, with its multiple lighted windows.

“Besides, my landlady is a bit of a prude,” Taako adds after a moment. He winks at Kravitz and leans over to kiss him goodbye. He then saunters away along the gravel path beyond the imposing metal gate, which had opened under his touch with an ominous creak.

*

Few dates later, they meet at a burger place and Taako looks like warmed up death again, pushing away his food with a grimace. Kravitz tries to recall if he’s ever actually seen Taako eat anything, any of the times they’ve met, and realizes he isn’t sure.

“You… I know we haven’t known each other than long, but I hope you know you can talk to me if something is wrong. If there’s anything I can help with?” he says.

Taako looks at him, shakes his head and smiles, sharp at the edges.

“Wrong? Nothing, except the usual y’nno, dead end job that doesn’t pay me enough and all that jazz.”

Kravitz frowns at him.

“I think we both know that isn’t it,” he says, darkly, because he’s starting to get really worried. Taako is… funny, in his sometimes kinda mean fashion, and bright and unpredictable, and yet sometimes it’s like the fire in him is dimmed, nearly gone.

Taako’s eyes narrow at his tone, sparking with annoyance. His fingers tap against his untouched key-lime milkshake, his nails a complementary lemon yellow.

“Really? Well, if it is or not, I think I have a right to a few secrets, right? We all have some of those, don’t we? Got to maintain a mystery to keep things interesting.”

“I—” Kravitz begins to say and the words die in his throat.

Taako gets up, the twist of his mouth sarcastic as he leans over the table, their positions oddly reminiscent of that first meeting at the Fantasy Garden.

He pats Kravitz on the lapel of his suit.

“I’d get my dry-cleaning done somewhere better in future, if I were you, they missed a spot,” he says lowly, private in the noise level of the busy restaurant, eyes flicking briefly down at something before meeting Kravitz’ stunned gaze again.

“See ya, bone boy,” Taako says and spins away dramatically, the line of buttons on his skirt swaying as he walks away.

Kravitz looks down and now he’s looking, he can spot the tiny reddish-brown stain on his suit lapel, smaller than a pinprick. Ah, damn.

*

The date after that, they do a picnic, in a planetarium. It was Taako’s turn to pick, and yet this is clearly more to Kravitz’ taste. He wonders if it’s supposed to an apology.

Taako is definitely showing off with the spread of freshly baked croissants with tiny jars of jam to choose from, a cheese platter and fruit salad kept fresh on dry ice. The melon bits in the salad are carved into flowers, even.

Kravitz offers him the last croissant, realizing with a pang of guilt he’d eaten the other three, and Taako waves it away.

“Got to watch the figure, you know,” he says, smiling wide enough to show the gap between his front teeth and gesturing expansively towards himself.

Kravitz takes his hands between his, rubbing some warmth into them. Taako looks better than last time, but still pale.

Taako gives him a wary look, like he’s expecting Kravitz to demand the truth again, to force confidences. He bites off just that, telling himself it would only drive Taako away.

“I… I like you a lot,” he says instead, wanting to make that clear at least. “That’s why I said what I said last time, because I don’t want you to...to be hurt. I just wanted to say that.”

Taako sighs and after a moment’s hesitation, leans in to kiss him lightly.

“Stop being so sappy, it’s embarrassing. Totally ruins your image of being tall, dark and dangerous” he complains, but he has one hand on the back of Kravitz’ head, petting through the wiry stubble of hair there.

Kravitz lays his head on his shoulder and huffs out a breath against Taako’s neck, mildly relieved he reacted so well. He wishes he could protest the dangerous, wishes it wasn’t more accurate than Taako knows.

They sit there for a long moment, artificial stars wheeling above them, until Taako ruffles his dreads and says they should be heading home before dawn.

As they are walking away, Taako, in the middle of a story about a friend of his who, get this, seduced a magical vine, without changing his tone, says: “and someone is following us. I don’t think it’s a fan.”

Kravitz has noticed as well. He was hoping against hope they would wait until he was alone. Of course they wouldn’t, if this is what he thinks it is, they will know that an extra person to protect will be to Kravitz’ disadvantage.

The road they are on is deserted, lined by closed shops, the streetlights casting lurid orange light.

Kravitz glances at Taako, who doesn’t seem particularly concerned.

“Taako, maybe you should…”

“Hey, ya boy’s been to the rodeo before,” Taako says, meeting his gaze with a nasty little grin, and then he whirls around, the poncho over his fluffy sweater flaring dramatically.

“Get out from the shadows already, assclown!” he calls out, before Kravitz can even think to stop him.

After an ominous pause, a figure emerges from the shadows, stalking towards them like a big cat on the hunt. Her hair hangs over her face, matted, and her hands are dark to the elbows, faintly glistening here and there with blood that hasn’t quite dried yet. Half her face is covered in it as well. Above the gore, her eyes gleam, reflecting light whenever her face falls into shadow.

Kravitz barely recognizes her for the put-together, alluring figure she was the last time they met. When it was her and her brother, luring in mortals and playing with them like cats with mice in their manor of horrors.

“Wow, gross,” Taako says, wrinkling his nose like he stepped into something unpleasant.

The vampire barely seems to notice him, too focused on Kravitz. Her eyes have a fixed stare, and she is growling faintly.

“Kravitzzz,” she hisses, her shoulders hunching and claws flexing on air, the tips clicking together. And then she pounces, claws and fangs out, shouting something about vengeance.

Things get… messy.

By the end of it, Kravitz looks up from the dead vampire, after pulling out the stake with a hard wrench. It makes a disgusting sucking noise that he ignores with long practice. It’s a good thing he wears a lot of black, he thinks ruefully as he notes the blood soaking into his shirt cuffs.

The vampire must have fed right before the attack, to have bled so profusely, and to have put up as much of a fight as she did. If Taako hadn’t been helping him out, he may even have been in trouble.

Kravitz looks up to where he is standing, a smile on his lips from the adrenaline of a good bout, meaning to thank Taako for the assistance.

But Taako is standing too still, his face blank. His hand is hanging limply at his side, the wand clutched in it loosely.

Oh, right. This was how most people reacted, wasn’t it? With shock, because killing monsters may have sounded ok in theory, but it was another thing to be confronted with the reality of it.

“So, uh, I… kinda do this for a living,” Kravitz says.

*

A week later, he wakes up feeling like got run over by a train. Maybe two trains. When he tries to open his eyes, the ambient light in the room stabs at them, blinding him momentarily, before his vision sort of focuses, enough to make out the lavishly furnished cellar room he is in, and yes, tied firmly to a chair, he works out a moment after, as he tries to move and can’t.

How did he end up here, he wonders momentarily, before it returns to him, in bits and pieces. Taako wasn’t answering his calls, and that was… ok, understandable, for him to be freaked out, but another part of Kravitz was wondering, what if. Vampires he’d killed had sent thralls after him before, because that didn’t just disappear after they died. She might have thought to send someone after Taako, if she had been watching him, planning the attack.

He’d felt a bit bad for breaking into where Taako lived, but he’d only wanted to make sure he was ok, Kravitz had told himself. He’d just check, and then he’d leave him alone.

So he’d climbed the fence, hopped over the spikes and broken glass, followed Taako’s scent to… a room in the cellar, which had seemed a bit unlike him, and then. There had been a nicely furnished room. With a coffin in it.

After that things got a bit hazy, but there was definitely pain.

On the Persian carpet in front of him, Taako is pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, the movement enough to make Kravitz feel dizzy. Dizzy… er? More dizzy?

Taako seems to be arguing with himself.

“Shit, she’s gonna kill me. Or him. Maybe both of us. I knew it was too good to be true, no one is THAT perfect…” Taako mutters, as he stalks back and forth across the floor.

He looks up, startling, as Kravitz groans, carefully because the sound seems to reverberate inside his own skull. He tests the bindings. He can usually break most ropes. Not this time, apparently.

Taako is slightly blurry in Kravitz’ vision, but he can see he bites his lip. Kravitz wonders how he kissed him and never noticed the fangs, even indrawn as they were. Some vampire hunter he is.

In his defence he hadn’t been thinking about work at the time. At all.  
They stare at each other.

“So,” Taako says, “This is awkward.”

He sounds faintly hysterical.

He taps a magic wand on his chin, a nervous gesture that Kravitz recognizes at this point. He used to find it endearing. He still kinda finds it endearing, even tied to a chair and maybe about to get killed. His hair feels tacky, and his neck, and the back of his collar, the feeling distant in comparison to the pain radiating from the back of his head. He has a faint memory of… flying? That can’t be right. He thinks he might have a concussion.

“Could we just… pretend you never saw me and I just, uh. Don’t have to kill you? Because it’d be kind of a waste, is all, killing a handsome guy like you,” Taako says, and he’s talking lightly, but too fast.

It’s hard to see in the cellar they are in, especially with his blurry vision, but Taako looks different. Recognizable, kinda, but there are subtle differences. If anything, prettier than he used to, almost inhumanely so. Or unelfinly… Kravitz shakes his head and then winces as the head injury protests the movement with a feeling like a thick needle pushed into his skull.

“Ow,” he says, and Taako stops in his pacing to stare at him, frowning. He steps closer, the faint light at the tip of his wand hurting Kravitz’ eyes before Taako circles behind him, the pain intensifying momentarily as something carefully pokes at his head.

“That’s a nasty bump, huh?” Taako mutters, his voice faintly guilty, before he adds: “It’s your fault though, for startling me. Why did you even have to turn up in the middle of the day, I told you I slept, on account of working the night shift,” he complains, as if Kravitz was being inconsiderate. The note of hysteria is back again.

“I was worried, when you didn’t return my calls!” Kravitz snaps back.

Being a vampire hunter isn’t safe, for him or the people around him. It was why he tended to keep a distance, but Taako had gotten in through his defences. Part of him had been worried Taako couldn’t reply to his calls because someone got him to get at Kravitz. Another part of him had just wanted to see him.

“You’re a vampire,” Kravitz says, stricken anew as it really sinks in.

Taako leans back and grimaces, having circled back to his front again.

“No shit Sherlock,” he mutters. “Yeah, ya boy is a vamp, creature of the night, what have you.” He leans forward again, something going cold and hard in his eyes. “But you didn’t exactly tell me either that you go around merking bloodsuckers in professional capacity, did ya, Kravitz my man?”

Kravitz glances at the coffin in the corner of the cellar, the lid still thrown open. It’s large and roomy, the inside lined in robin’s egg blue satin and several pillows in various colours. Very Taako.

“Most people don’t really… get that. Creeps them out,” he mutters, feeling slightly woozy from blood loss, or something.

Maybe a bit heartbroken, because he’d been hoping _this_ relationship might survive that reveal. Taako, for all the fainting, seemed tough as nails in every other respect. A bit abrasive, a bit of an oddball, but Kravitz hunted and killed the undead for a living, so. That might have been just perfect. Might have. If he wasn’t one of them.

Taako sighs.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” he asks, making an expansive gesture with his wand.

Kravitz wonders why he isn’t more concerned for his life. It might be the head injury. It might be that Taako is pacing again, rather than having his fangs sunk in Kravitz’ neck to suck out what remaining hp he has.

That’s a. Not necessarily as frightening an image as it should be. Huh.

“You could… go?” Kravitz says. He’d have to hunt him down, of course, but Taako is clever enough he might just get away (though not really, a more realistic part of Kravitz points out. Unless he bled out from the head wound before managing to get out of the bindings, of course. He’s pretty tough, but Taako did throw him into a wall, and he’s pretty sure he hit something sharp on the way.

“Kravitz, babe, I _live_ here,” Taako is saying, exasperated, somewhere far away.

Is the cellar really that dark or is his vision going? He can barely see Taako, which is kind of a blessing because all the movement was making him nauseous.

He thinks Taako has stopped and is staring at him, either way.

“Kravitz, you ok?” Taako asks, which is absurd to ask of someone who is meant to be your mortal enemy.

Kravitz feels cold. Shock? Probably. That’s not good, he thinks distantly.

He tries to say something, but his head hurts a lot, and at least he might not need to hunt down Taako after all, he thinks as everything goes dark.

*

He wakes up in a coffin, and Taako never lets him forget how he absolutely ruined the lining, and he never found satin in that exact colour again.

But he does wake up, in Taako’s coffin.

Kravitz takes stock, hoping whoever is there in the room hasn’t noticed he is awake yet. There is someone, because he can hear them breathing, nearby. Two of them even?

His head still hurts, but less so. Has he been healed? Hands are still tied, in front of him, and he’s still weak from blood loss, so it can’t have been a very good healing spell.

At least he isn’t about to pass out from the pain anymore, but his hair feels unpleasantly tacky from the dried blood.

He opens his eyes just enough to figure out he’s lying in the coffin, with the lid open above him.

Did Taako get someone to heal him? It doesn’t make any sense, but nothing about the evening so far has. He should have been an easy kill, unconscious and bleeding out already… it occurs to him, then, that it isn’t exactly the first chance Taako has had to kill him, not by far, and not just tonight.

Maybe they need to have a talk, before any decisions about anyone killing anyone are made. He has never let a vampire get away, sure, it is kind of a break of his work ethics but…

“Oh, he’s waking up,” a child’s voice says. So much for pretending to be unconscious.

Kravitz opens first one eye and then the other, before sitting up slowly, unsteady without the use of his hands.

He hears a low warning growl, the sort of noise that bypasses the brain and goes straight for the spine, with the simple primeval message of _run for your life_. Kravitz, who deals with vampires on a regular basis turns sharply towards the threat.

Big dog, is his first thought. A very big dog, with scruffy dark fur, staring at him intently. It huffs as a small hand waves in front of its eyes, distracted.

“It’s ok” the child’s voice says soothingly, drawing Kravitz’ attention downwards from the yellow gaze of the dog.

He blinks. The child has glasses, dark freckled skin and a newsboy cap perched on a mess of curls. Kravitz recognizes him.

“Angus McDonald, the boy detective?” he asks, disbelieving.

Last he heard, the boy hunted criminals, not vampires. And Kravitz had suspected even the criminals were some kind of publicity stunt, because the kid was what, twelve at most?

The boy smiles nervously.

“Oh yes, that’s me,” he says. He has one hand on the shoulder of the large dog and looks absolutely tiny next to it. As the boy pats it, the dog leans down and licks his face.

Angus grimaces.

“Ugh, Magnus, please,” he mutters, pushing at the dog. It wags its tail, before turning to stare unblinkingly at Kravitz again.

Angus McDonald sighs and frowns at Kravitz.

“I’m sorry, he’s not super sentient right now,” he says, seemingly out of nowhere, and then clears his throat, pointing upwards. “Mr. Taako is upstairs, arguing with the… ah, our landlady,” the boy explained slowly. “She’s not very happy with him for giving out the adress. We are supposed to be kinda secret here.”

“Ah, I see,” says Kravitz, who doesn’t.

“He’s not very good at following rules,” the boy adds, neutrally, still patting the dog.

“No,” Kravitz agrees, because that much he knows.

He’d seen Angus McDonald on the news, now and then, but he’d thought the kid wasn’t really solving actual serious crimes. It didn’t really sound all that safe, for a child. Assuming he is a child?

“Are you a vampire as well?” he asks, suspiciously, and Angus opens his mouth and blinks, before shaking it with a small, incredulous laugh.

“Me? No, no, I’m just a regular little boy!” he says, before pausing. “I mean, I suppose the crime solving is a bit unusual, but I’m not—I’m just a human,” he says with a little nod to himself, as if pleased to have found the right wording.

He is very endearing, Kravitz thinks. He looks at the boy closely and he does seem to be what he claims, a human child. Still, something about his eyes, the way they are looking at Kravitz like Angus can see right through him, is giving him a squirmy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The boy tilts his head, giving him a wry sort of smile, almost apologetic.

“I’m sorry, this might be a bit rude but… you’re not human, are you?” Angus says levelly. “Not… entirely.”

Kravitz stares at him for a long beat.

“What?” he asks, his voice coming out as a croak.

“Well, you see,” Angus replies, “Vampires are very much stronger than normal humans, or elves, and Mr. Taako hasn’t been one for very long, so he’s not used to that. And when I asked him earlier if he used his full power when throwing you away when you startled him, he said yes*. And I noticed the shelf, which is quite sturdy, mind you, was very much dented in. So, with a certain margin of error, a human thrown at a metal shelf at such velocity…” Angus stops to draw breath with a little gasp, and then finishes, still in a mild tone: “Well, they’d probably be dead, I would think. He would have felt bad about that, so I’m glad you’re ok!” he concludes, smiling brightly at Kravitz, who is still trying to take in the whole spiel.

(His exact words had been: “I was woken up from dead sleep-- shut up Merle, and he was standing right above me with a big fucking kebob skewer, I was startled ok?!” But Angus summarised that as “yes, I did.”.)

“I’m… that could have been luck?” Kravitz manages, and Angus McDonald gives him a thin smile.

“Perhaps,” he says, seemingly mainly to be polite. “However, while you were unconscious, I noticed that your ears are slightly pointed, and you have unusually long incisors, not the retracting kind most vampires have, more like a werewolf in human shape. However, you came here during the daylight hours, and the moon is full tonight. So, with the hardiness on the level of a vampire, but without the weakness towards sunlight…”

Kravitz lets his shoulders fall and raises his bound hands in defeat.

“Ok, fine, I’m a dhampir,” he admits, if only to get the boy to stop talking before he turns blue. “What does that have to do with anything?”

And who decided a child, even with a big dog, should be left alone to guard a possibly belligerent stranger, Kravitz wonders. Seemed irresponsible. It was probably Taako, he thinks uncharitably.

Angus McDonald smiles and opens his mouth to reply, but he’s interrupted by the sound of voices and footsteps descending the stairs into the cellar.

“Usually I’d say we just waste the fool, but _someone_ just insisted I heal him, so it seems kinda silly at this point,” a gruff voice mutters, over an arch, possibly female voice that is at the same time saying, admonishing:

“I still cannot believe you wouldn’t do even a rudimentary background check before engaging in… in courting, never mention bringing them here, when I have expressly told you not to!”

And, third, a very familiar voice, in a sulky tone:

“Give it a rest already, will you, what’s done is done.”

Taako walks in, followed by a spectral half-elf woman who hovers a few inches above the floor, her arms crossed and her slightly transparent, desaturated face set disapprovingly.

A ghost, and it’s been a while since he has a seen one that solid, Kravitz thinks with some fascination. Most of them have a hard time retaining their shape for long, not to mention personality and full sentience. Most ghosts are more of a… shade of a feeling than a person. They aren’t his speciality, but he knows that much.

This one seems remarkably present, however. He can see the details of her features and slightly old-fashioned dress, only obscured by a sort of floating miasma around her, tangling about in agitated swirls. 

Behind her at the back of the trio, partially visible through the ghostly woman, there’s a dwarf dressed in an eye searing Hawaiian shirt and an eyepatch over one eye. And is… is one of his arms made of living wood?

“He’s awake, sirs, ma’am,” Angus says, having to raise his voice to be heard over the continuing argument that, Kravitz has figured out, is about him.

The ghost turns towards Kravitz, floating closer to loom over him. Her eyes have a cold inner luminosity, and there is something hungry in her stare that almost has him flinching back, not that he has anywhere to go.

“Hey, Luce, watch the spooktacles” Taako says, sounding faintly alarmed, as Kravitz feels an icy aura enveloping him along with the ghost’s full attention. Her face is calm now, but his spine is still crawling with a warning that he is in danger.

“Ah, director?” Angus says, his voice seeming far away. “He’s a dhampir? So I was thinking maybe we could negotiate…?” he trails off. The big dog gets up, nosing at Angus to push him further back.

Kravitz hears Taako say: “He’s what now?” in a disbelieving voice, and Angus replying, but he’s mainly focused on the ghost still looking at him intently, her eyes grey and cold.

She raises a hand, calling for quiet, and then leans down even closer. There is something terrifying in a full weight of her attention, her wide luminous gaze staring unblinkingly at him. Bits of ghostly aura float around her, slowly curling closer and closer to Kravitz. The cold emanating from them burns, even though they aren’t touching him yet.

“Dhampir, human, I don’t care.” She says, evenly. “The only thing I care about is keeping the ones who come here, who put themselves under my _protection_ , safe from the likes of you who would hunt them just for being what they are.”

Ok, that’s going a bit far, Kravitz thinks, drawing himself up indignantly.

“Well, this is the first I hear of this,” he says, ignoring Taako waving his arms frantically at him, including miming slitting his throat. “But last I checked I hunted vampires who had _killed_ people. Usually how I find out about them, in fact.” Except when they came after him directly of course. But then they were trying to kill _him_ so it was essentially the same thing.

The ghost raises a narrow eyebrow.

“Oh, so you didn’t follow Taako here to put a stake through his heart?” she says, and one part of her aura moves closer to Kravitz, hovering close to his neck. He resists the urge to move away.

“I didn’t even know he was a vampire!” Kravitz replies before he can think better of it, and Taako covers his face in his hands and then drags them down to glare at him.

“Great, now she’s really going to turn you into an icicle, you idiot!” he snaps.

The ghost woman frowns, turning towards Taako.

“Wait, he didn’t know? You didn’t say that…” she says, and Taako glares at her as well.

“You bet I didn’t, because I didn’t want you to kill my _boyfriend_!” he shouts. “Screw this, I need a drink,” he mutters and then abruptly stalks to the side towards a mini fridge in the corner. He opens the door with an angry motion and takes out a… a blood bag. With a colourful straw in it.

He takes a loud sip and makes a face.

“Ugh, Merle, this is even worse than usual,” he says, glaring at the bag in disgust. “How far beyond best by date is this shit?”

The dwarf frowns, affronted.

“Hey, I’m doing my best, hospitals don’t exactly just hand out blood bags, if it wasn’t for my valuable contacts with—”

“Taako, Merle, can we concentrate?” the ghost says, tapping a foot on air. “We still need to deal with the intruder.”

“Still my boyfriend,” Taako interjects, before taking another long sip of blood, and then sitting on the floor with an abstracted expression: “I mean, my maybe ex-boyfriend who maybe wants to murder me now but like, at least _he_ has a reason, right?” he rambles, giving Kravitz a questioning glance. “Uh, do you?”

Blood high. He’s seen it before, but usually the vampires were ranting about power and glory and crawling on walls while attacking him. Kravitz frowns and wonders academically if the difference is due to Taako’s personality or just that the blood is in a bag… wait, focus.

“Uh,” he says. “Not particularly right now.”

“See!” Taako tells the ghost, gesturing towards Kravitz.

She sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

“So, lets all chill for a second before we kill anyone, no offence Lucretia,” the dwarf says placatingly. “Kravitz, is it?” he asks jovially, and Kravitz nods, dumbfounded.

“So, you didn’t know Taako was a vampire, right?”

He nods again.

“And Taako, you didn’t know he was a vampire hunter, correct?”

Taako, still sitting on the floor, is staring petulantly at his mostly empty blood bag.

“Yeah, I mean no, not before… like last week?” he says, and the ghost squeaks.

“Last week!? And you didn’t think to mention this before?!”

“Ugh, don’t shriek at me Lucie, I was working out how to deal with it,” Taako protests.

“You weren’t replying to my calls, I was worried!” Kravitz says and gets a sulky shrug in reply, as well as a drawn out:

“Suuure, stalker.”

He maybe deserves that, a little, he thinks guiltily. But he _was_ worried!

“Ok, so you two were being dumb teens, and then this shock reveal happened, but now it’s all good, right?” the dwarf summarises in a condescending tone, getting glares from both of them.

“I’m older than you, Merle,” Taako remarks, and then mutters. “And Kravitz is a jerk but none of you are allowed to kill him, capiche?”

“I’m a…! Kravitz begins and goes quiet as the ghost begins to turn towards him slowly, wisps of aura rising. “I mean, maybe I should have mentioned it earlier? And I…”

“I don’t exactly go around draining people, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Taako says, waving the empty blood bag in his hand. “As disgusting as these things Merle gets through his mafia contacts are, it’s just too much of a bother.”

The dwarf rolls his eyes: “I’ve told you it’s not the mafia,” he says.

“Whatever, old man,” Taako says, waving him away.

“Well. I guess I don’t really. Need to hunt you then, if that’s true,” Kravitz says tentatively, cautious relief blossoming in his chest.

Taako sniffs, not meeting his eyes.

“Yeah, obviously,” he says sarcastically. “Mind you, you’re still on thin ice for keeping secrets, spooky boy.”

Kravitz knows him well enough to know when he’s actually angry, and this… is probably not it. Besides the whole defending his life thing.

“See, just a little lover’s tiff,” the dwarf, Merle, tells the ghost, who still seems dubious but resigned for the time being. She keeps giving Kravitz little side glances, as if to remind him she still has an eye on him.

The big dog barks, making Kravitz aware of its continued presence. It is wagging its tail, seeming to sense the lightened mood in the room. Angus, as well, has been hovering quietly until then.

“So, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Angus says, smiling at Kravitz a little uncertainly. “Ah, I haven’t said yet, nice to meet you, now the circumstances are a bit better!”

“Nice to meet you too, Angus,” Kravitz replies, wryly. Then he looks down at himself, sitting up in a coffin with his still bound hands.

“So, anyone care to take these off me now?” he asks. 


	3. Barry & Lup

So, in any case. There is the hearse at the end of the driveway, you still remember that, I hope. It’s a nice neighbourhood, people say, it’s making them uncomfortable being reminded of death like that, every day. What if their kids ask about it?

Barry glances at it on his way to the front door, parked at the end of the driveway as usual, in front of the house opposite theirs. The house is an elaborate little Victorian mansion, newly painted in dark purple and a vivid mint green.

He unlocks the front door, toes off his sneakers in the hall, and finds Lup upstairs with the curtains mostly drawn.

She’s hunched over the small table in front of the window, a pair of binoculars trained on the house opposite. There’s a cup and a plate with some crumbs on it next to her elbows.

Barry sighs.

“I don’t think they’re necromancers, baby,” he says, walking up to her to lean down and kiss her hair.

Lup leans back to pull him into a proper kiss briefly, before going back to the binoculars.

“Sure, just like the Wilsons weren’t,” she says absently.

“Yeah, you were right about them, but we did get sent after them, these are our random neighbours.” Barry says mildly. “I’m pretty sure he’s just a goth.”

“Hmph,” Lup says. “We haven’t seen his supposed boyfriend though,” she adds darkly. “And there’s the dark window glass he had put in the windows.”

“Kravitz said his boyfriend works nights,” Barry points out with a small smile.

He leans on Lup’s shoulders, digging his hands into tense muscle, and she finally puts the binoculars down, almost purrs as Barry continues the massage.

He knows the case they are on has been stressing her out. Lucas Miller, with the suspicious purchases online that alerted their superiors into sending Barry and Lup on his trail. Miller, with his mother recently passed away and no previous known history of necromancy.

They’ve been trying to get close to him, but it hasn’t been easy. Unlike many necromancers, Miller isn’t interested in bragging about his methods or the number of virgins he has sacrificed. Barry had barely gotten him engaged in conversation about some theories about the medical and magical uses of robotics that maybe edged into semi-necromantic areas, but he’d clammed right up when pushed too far.

Pity, it had been a rather interesting conversation, purely theoretically of course, Barry thinks absently.

“You’re thinking about dead bodies, aren’t you?” Lup says wryly, staring up at him where she’s leaning back into his hands.

“Ah, just work,” Barry admits half-guiltily, and Lup reaches up to pinch his ear. “Ow,” Barry says mildly, and she sniggers at him.

“All work and no play—” Lup begins in a singsong voice, as Barry grimaces at her.

“Don’t,” he protests. “Besides you’re the one stalking the neighbours.”

“We haven’t seen the boyfriend,” Lup repeats, and, yeah.

“I still think the coffin could have been for aesthetics as well…” he tries.

“Yeah but it’s not in the car now is it?”

And yeah, the main problem with Lucas Miller, assuming he is dabbling in illegal necromancy, which he probably is, is the glaringly obvious motive. It’s personal. No wonder Lup is trying to find other things to focus on, like their mildly suspicious goth neigbour.

Barry sighs and drapes himself over Lup’s shoulders, her arms coming up to hold his.

“Find anything?” she asks, staring at the house opposite with its black windows.

“More of the same. The suppliers get him the stuff he pays for and don’t ask questions. Say they haven’t seen anything suspicious and probably haven’t. Lots of tempered glassware, made to order, mostly thin piping.”

“Hmm,” Lup says. “You think he has all of it now?”

“Well, I only have my theories about what he’s planning, but if I’m right he ought to be getting close. What I’m not sure is if we have enough evidence.”

Lup grins.

“All we need to do is catch him in the act, and then it’s not our problem,” she says cheerfully, because she doesn’t care if their handler chews them out for sloppy work that makes it harder for the justice system.

Sometimes he feels a bit bad for it, but Barry doesn’t really care either. What he doesn’t like is when Lup takes unnecessary risks charging in on dangerous people. But he’s kinda gotten used to that as well.

“Right,” he says, now.

“I went by the facility,” Lup says, meaning the location they’ve identified as the most likely for the final stage of Miller’s foray into raising the dead. “It looked quiet, but I tested for remains of Origenic particles, and bingo, present and fresh from the oven.”

“Lup,” Barry says, because they had agreed to stay away and not risk scaring Miller.

“No one saw me, promise,” she replies, still with that reckless grin. “And it’s super blood moon next Friday, on the 13th. He won’t get a chance like that again in a looong while.”

“True,” Barry agrees. “I’ll mark it in the calendar, then.”

“Ambush time~” Lup hums. “Want to bet he’ll have live sacrifices or if he’s really found a way around that? Wouldn’t that be something? Pity we’ll have to crash the party,” she chats at him as she springs up from the chair, walking towards the bed and then hopping onto it with a crash of springs, bouncing gently on the mattress as she flops down on it, her short hair haloing her head.

“Barry, I’m starving, when are we eating?” she complains, and he bites back the reply she could have done something about that anytime while he was away.

“Take out? Or I think we have stuff for paella” he asks, keeping his voice light.

Lup makes a face.

“Baby, I love you, but your paella? It kinda sucks, no offence,” she tells him gently.

Barry sighs.

“If you say so,” He agrees easily, and she doesn’t offer to cook instead. It’s been hard for her, since.

“Indian, chicken vindaloo and that thing with lentils. And extra naan,” she says after a moment, decisively.

“Sure,” Barry says and gets up to get his phone from his jacket pocket.

Later that night, they are lying in bed, Lup lying half on him and their legs tangled together, staring up at the ceiling. The house feels unfamiliar, still, like staying at a hotel. They’ll probably be moving on again before that changes.

Necromancers don’t tend to stay in one place for long, on account of the bodies piling up in their cellar or under the lawn. Makes it easy to pretend that’s why they don’t stay around for long, rather than because they get sent around to go after other necromancers.

In the mostly dark room, Barry can just see the top of Lup’s head where her cheek is pressed against his chest. Her arm, thrown over his stomach, is dark against the pale skin, the intricate designs of her tattoos blurred by the night.

It’s dangerous work they do, but he feels safe with her. They are dangerous too he thinks with a smile at the darkness.

“If I went rogue, would you try to stop me or help out?” Lup asks, like it’s idle speculation. Like she hasn’t gotten entirely real necromantic tattoos over half her body already, for verisimilitude, she says, and wears long sleeves when they meet with their handler.

Barry doesn’t even need to think about it.

“Of course I’d help you,” he says, affronted, and she laughs against his chest, which tickles and causes him to wriggle a little. “I would, but… I dunno, Lup…”

She curls in closer, putting a hand to his lips before he can finish the sentence.

“I know,” she says heavily. “Not unless we have a sure method. Do it well or not at all.”

There’s steel there, and he smiles again, rubbing a hand against the back of her neck, over smooth shoulder blades. There, though he can’t see them, are the bold dark lines forming the symbols of sulphur, salt and mercury, on the opposite side of the sun in the middle of her chest. Sun, for gold, and heart. 

“Yes,” he agrees softly.

“I miss him,” she says, so softly it’s almost inaudible, and he doesn’t reply, only thinks, _me too_. 

They lie there, until the sound of Wonderwall, played on an organ, drifts from the house opposite and Lup gets up to close the window, cursing under her breath at dumbasses with no taste or sense of time. Barry chooses not to mention it didn’t sound that bad.

*

Later yet, after the muffled sound of the organ next door has gone quiet and Barry is asleep, his breath making small snuffling sounds that aren’t quite a snore, Lup curls against him and thinks about meditation.

Elves don’t need sleep, but some do it anyway, sometimes. Taako used to like it, when he could, and maybe it was the rarity of that kind of security when they were growing up that did it for him. That or just him being awful at meditation.

Lup could always do it, letting her mind go still, floating serenely at a slight remove while she sorted through her head. The good thing with meditation as opposed to sleep was that one could snap out of it quickly, if necessary, no lax muscles or groggy head. Great if one had to get up quickly to defend oneself.

And then there was her brother, still but tense at her side wherever they were resting, always together in those early days, because being apart meant danger. He always thought too much, felt too intensely to step away and put the thoughts and feelings in order. He could play unfeeling and callous all he wanted, but Lup knew it was all or nothing with him, and sometimes the all was a lot.

And so, he wasn’t any good at meditation, and was either just lying there pretending and going spare with boredom and nerves, or actually asleep.

She shivers, even though Barry radiates warmth in his sleep, even under the covers.

It makes her think of the henge in the grove. The white trees with their silvery bark like tall pillars, the masked caretaker following her in complete silence, their steps making no sound on the thick moss on the forest floor.

She remembers the weight on her arms, the numbness of her feelings. Barry had to wait outside. The caretakers wouldn’t let him into the sacred grove because he wasn’t an elf. Lup hadn’t had the energy to fight them even if she had wanted to.

The henge was old, ancient stone pillars sticking out of the moss like broken teeth, and she’d felt the power of it like nails on the chalkboard of her magical senses. Like a hum that was pitched too high to hear. Inside the stones, there grew only odd pale grass, peppered with tiny golden yellow flowers.

“This will keep the body?” she asked, her voice coming out too high and querulous. The caretaker only nodded, wordlessly, before raising their featureless masked face towards her as if expectant.

“Thanks, I don’t need any more help,” Lup told them gruffly, and the caretaker nodded before turning and walking back towards the way they came.

Lup grit her teeth before stepping into the ring of stones, the feeling of power intensifying the moment she crossed the border. The air inside the pillars felt cooler, dryer, but she couldn’t even be sure whether she was imagining it.

Carefully, she laid the wrapped tall bundle she’d been carrying on the ground. Just as gently, she unwrapped the shroud just enough to see her brother’s face, too still and pale, the planes of his face looking sunken in.

Decay took slower to elves, even after death, but he already smelled wrong, more of the morgue than himself.

She sat there, unsure how much time passed. Maybe expecting something to happen, or to feel something new, something else than numbness and sorrow like a lead blanket over her shoulders.

It didn’t come.

Eventually, Lup sighed and lay down next to Taako, staring up at the lacy canopy of silvery leaves far up above, light filtering gently through them. The grass below her felt wrong, the leaves thin and feathery where they brushed against bare skin.

“One way or another, I’ll be back,” she said, her voice coming out hushed out of a parched throat.

The caretakers hadn’t thought it odd, as far as she could tell, for her to want to preserve the body. She had the vague impression it was something upper class elves did sometimes, when a loved one passed before them. Keep the body, until they could join them.

It wasn’t really part of their, of her experience. When their great great grandmother passed away, they’d left the body in a regular funeral grove, nothing fancy like this one, to be slowly consumed by the forest. There had been flowers, she recalled, a shock of colour a contrast to the lined, colourless face and white hair pillowed under her head, carefully braided by family members. She’d looked less stern in death, she’d thought then, peaceful.

Taako just looked empty, she thought, glancing over at his still profile.

“Show’s over, nothing here”, Lup whispered, hearing it in his voice in her head, her mouth twisting in what may have been a smile.

It was only the thought of Barry waiting with the car outside the grove that got her up off the ground. That and the resolve she would be back, one day. Still, when Lup left, she felt empty as well, like she’d left some essential part of herself behind in the ring of standing stones.

She breaths in sharply, in the present, and Barry sighs and shifts next to her, his brow furrowed when Lup glances his way.

“Shh,” she whispers, and he mutters something before growing still again, his breathing quickly easing into sleep. He’s a heavy sleeper, Lup thinks, her lips quirking. It’s cute.

Clearly, this night the memories won’t leave her in peace so easily, she thinks with an internal sigh. The best she can do, most likely, is to let them come as they will. It’ll be ok, she has nothing particular to do tomorrow.

Still, she breathes deeply, trying to gain that bird’s eye view of her life. It doesn’t take away the background noise of guilt and _missing her brother_ , still, every day, but it does give her a slight distance to it, an ability to appraise the shape of it.

Pros: Barry, sweet patient oddball Barry. Her job, that is at least sometimes exciting, and gives her a legitimate excuse to gather information on necromancy without actually doing anything too criminal or morally reprehensible. Yet.

Cons: Pretty much everything else.

Goddamn Sazed, she lets herself think, frustrated anger like a smouldering ember glowing red, flaring up when she lets herself feel it. Goddamn stupid Taako with his bad taste in boyfriends. No definite proof, but her instincts say it was his fault somehow. If he wasn’t dead already…

Sazed, who she’d met, what, twice? Three times? She’d seen why Taako would be into him, sure, with those handsome athletic looks and the big puppy eyes, but sometimes he didn’t look deep enough past the surface.

Sazed had been way too desperate to please, she’d thought even back then, too much of a yes man. Taako would tear him to shreds, on one of his bad days, the poor bastard.

She loved him, her brother, but he’d never been _easy_.

Of course they broke up, of course it was ugly, of course Taako acted like it was nothing, he didn’t miss stupid smarmy Sazed at all, who did he think he was anyway? Lup had served up the booze and ice cream that Taako said was dreadful and ate up anyway and let him pass out on her sofa. 

That was that, she’d thought, Taako a snoring passed out weight against her side while My Fair Lady played on on the tv screen.

Only two months later he was dead.

Lup skims over the tangle of memories that follows. She has already spent enough time there tonight.

She makes herself remember the station, instead, month and a half after, staring sightlessly at paperwork that doesn’t make any sense. She hadn’t been meditating for a while. She had maybe passed out once or twice out of sheer exhaustion, in the last month, and earlier than day she’d snapped at Barry for… something. She couldn’t remember what.

His face had gone pinched and hurt and he’d slammed the door of the office when he left, which was unlike him. She had a feeling she would feel bad later. She already felt kinda bad, under the haze of tired.

Someone knocks on the door, and Lup started. It opened, and she could see Detective Hurley peer in, her round face grave. She had a thick manila folder under one arm.

“Hey, this a good time?” she asked. “There’s something I wanted to let you know.”

“Yeah,” Lup said, clearing her throat as her voice came out rough and unfamiliar.

Hurley stepped in, veering round Lup’s desk and hopped onto the chair on the other side. It was too large for her, her feet not quite reaching the floor, and she shifted a little, reaching over to put the folder down on the desk.

Hurley gave Lup a long look, which she made herself meet without flinching. It was almost the kind of searching look she had seen the other detective give to people in the interrogation room. After a moment’s study, Hurley made a face.

“Shit, Lup, you look rough, have you been resting at all? Or eating?” Hurley said, the words as subtle as a stone.

Startled, Lup heard herself laugh, surprised it didn’t come out more deranged. Yeah, that was what Barry was fussing about earlier, what she got angry over.

She breathed out, deep, and shook her head wordlessly.

“You have got to take better care of yourself, Lup,” Hurley told her with a frown, and sounding absurdly motherly for someone who was like a hundred years too young to talk to Lup like that. It was so absurd she could not even get mad, a clump rising in her throat instead.

“Yeah, I’ll—I’ll try Hurley.” She said.

Hurley nodded.

“I can only imagine how tough this is…” she muttered, her eyes filled with compassion, and a fear Lup recognized. The fear every policeman feels, when the tragedies they confront hit too close to home.

“Mm,” she said, and then: “So, you had something to tell me, or did you just come to harass me?” she asked and could see Hurley pull on a more professional mask, her hands reaching out to untie the straps keeping the folder closed. She didn’t open it, and still Lups eyes were drawn to it.

Hurley… Hurley’s the one who had been working on Taako’s case. She’s a good detective, smart, driven, the best person for the job. Lup still _hated_ it. She knew she would have done a shit job of it, but she _needed_ to be on it herself. Needed to find out the bastard that killed her brother and—

She blinked, Hurley was looking at her and Lup hadn’t heard what she said.

“Lup, you ok?” she asked, and Lup released the edge of her desk from her hands. The cheap plywood was cracked, she noted distantly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said lightly, “can you repeat that?”

Hurley narrowed her eyes at her but did continue.

“What I said was, Lup, I haven’t solved it, but I have… an idea. You see, we found another body, found floating out on the bay by a fisherman. Male, half-orc, body was in bad shape, but we got a match on the dental.”

“Who?” Lup asks flatly.

“Sazed, he was Taako’s ex wasn’t he?” Hurley said softly, and she was giving Lup that look again, why… oh.

Lup laughed, unable to help herself.

“I didn’t kill him, Hurley,” she said after a moment.

“I sure hope so,” Hurley replied with a sigh, before smiling crookedly. “And if you did I hope I never find out.”

“You think it was connected?” Lup asked.

Hurley shrugged.

“Frankly, the trail is pretty cold. With the state the body was in, the pathologist had trouble even establishing cause of death for sure,” she made a face again.

“Can I see the photos?” Lup asked anyway.

Hurley complied wordlessly, handing her the pile of glossy photos. Yeah, not so handsome now, Lup thought darkly.

“What’s your theory?” she asked.

“From what I got from asking around, Sazed took the break-up pretty hard.” Hurley said, her voice quiet and even. “His friends hadn’t seen much of him, in the weeks leading up to, to your brother’s death. Most thought he was either moping at home or maybe found a rebound relationship.”

Lup nodded, and Hurley continued:

“Couldn’t find much on that either. But there was an erased voice mail we managed to recover, of him inviting Taako to dinner, on the night of the murder. And a neighbour of his recalled seeing him later that night, coming out of his apartment with packed bags, looking kinda freaked out… and that’s the last anyone saw of him.”

Lup closed her eyes. God. She didn’t think… she’d thought Sazed was flaky, but not a murderer. But she’d seen that before, people found ways around it… get someone else to do the deed. Poison, or sabotaging the breaks, setting the house on fire. Convincing themselves this wasn’t _really_ on them, it was practically an accident… She opened her eyes, and Hurley’s eyes were trained on her, searching.

“God, I wish I _had_ killed him,” Lup told her, honestly.

Hurley nodded, her expression grave, and yet relieved.

“I bet,” she said softly. “We may never know what really happened, unfortunately. Maybe he did it and regretted it. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Lup nodded. It was not resolution like she hoped for, but it was something, at least.

It was not nearly enough.

She’d thought becoming a cop, one of the system, she wouldn’t have to go through this shit again, wouldn’t have to loose someone and accept that there was no justice to be had.

If it was going to be like this, what had been the point of any of it? _Lucrecia, what was the point?_

*

The neighbour’s car starts, pulling Lup out of her memories. Glancing at the nightstand, the clock is blinking 03:45. Midway into the witching hour. Where’s he going at this time?

Maybe she’s getting paranoid, and he’s just getting his boyfriend, who is not a corpse, from his night job, Lup thinks resignedly. Barry’s probably right on that, but she’s not going to admit it just like that. She could get up, wait for the neighbour to return and get definite proof.

Except it’s warm under the covers, and the memories have left her feeling heavy and more tired than when she began. She closes her eyes, and counts Barry’s breaths, letting her own synch with his. It’s boring, usually, but she can meditate like that too. In, out, in… out.

Lup smiles, feeling something like true peace settling on her slowly, and stays in bed. Let Barry prove she’s wrong himself.

*

The raid on Lucas Miller’s lab is going great, Lup thinks as she blasts out another ghost possessed robot. It crashes into a bunch of previously intricate machinery, leaving a smoking wreck of sparking electricity and glittering glass, covered in some ooze Lup doesn’t care to think about. She giggles.

“Lup!” Barry shouts at her, sounding pained. Oh, oops, she’s not supposed to break too much stuff, right.

She turns to him, blinking innocently.

“Sorry babe,” Lup says, in the voice that makes him blush and forget all about the machinery he won’t get to inspect later.

“I guess it was mostly only a control board, anyway,” Barry mutters, with just a small sigh. “Did you see how the minor spirit jars were amplified by the mechanized circle? I’d have never thought of that! But it could be a lot more effective if…”

Lup tunes him out and goes to inspect the door into the next room instead. It’s not that she isn’t interested, but one of them has to focus on finishing the mission and keeping the both of them alive for the moment. They’ll have time for an in-depth study later.

Besides, she’s been itching for a good old-fashioned brawl, which Miller has thoughtfully provided. 10/10.

Barry’s been starry eyed for most of the evening, more focused on ogling the necromantic machinery they’ve found and less on fighting the ghost-robot security they managed to trip over. Lup has had to save him multiple times, but she doesn’t exactly mind. It’s relaxing to get to go all out for once, since they are not fighting living beings.

The main complication so far has been that Lucas’ laboratory is far more labyrinthine in its multiple underground floors than they’d expected. And then there’s this, Lup thinks as they step into the next room to find it scorched and trashed already.

“Hm,” Barry says thoughtfully, walking over to what appears like some kind of small robot. “Either Miller likes to test his gadgets to destruction, or…”

“You saw the museum,” Lup points out “what was left of it. And I bet that door,” she continues, gesturing towards one of the three doors out of the room, this one clearly ripped off its hinges, “didn’t destroy itself either. We’re not the only intruders here tonight Barry.”

“That’s weird,” Barry says. “Corporate espionage? Seems kinda sloppy work for that…”

Lup shrugs. As long as whoever they are don’t get in their way, she doesn’t care overly much. Based on the trail they’ve found, her and Barry can probably take them anyway, if it comes to that.

She peers into the next room, which shows similar traces of a battle, including three seemingly inert spookbots. They haven’t been completely destroyed, but the glass soul-holders in their chests are empty and dark.

Barry looks around the room curiously.

“Lup, is that a banishing spell residue I feel?” he asks, and she raises her head to sniff at the air.

“Yup, cleric spell. Smells kinda… green? Flowery? Think they missed a bit of soul though,” she remarks quietly, noting a tiny bit of fluttering light hiding in a corner of the soul holder of one of the robots.

She walks over, poking at the cracked jar installed in the inert robot. The glass clinks against the metal tip of her umbrastaff, and the bit of light shudders and tries to curl away from it.

One of the robot’s eyes flicker, a few tiny lights coming to life.

“Tenacious, aren’t you?” Lup says, “But it’s no good, most of your soul is gone already. Might as well give up the ghost.”

“You again? Killing me twice not enough...” a voice mutters from around the robot’s chest, with a distinct snooty drow accent underneath the mechanical buzz.

“Did I?” she asks, not recognizing it as such, but she’s killed a few people in her life, so who knows.

“Course you… oh, you’re not Taako. Didn’t know there were two of you…”

Chills go down her spine, and when she speaks it comes out as cold as the grave.

“What’s that about my brother?” she asks, accompanied by a small screech of metal on glass as her staff skitters over the spirit jar.

The bit of soul shudders as if in terror.

“Brother? Oooh, right, of course!” the voice gives out a mechanical laugh that might be nervous or mocking, hard to tell beneath the static. “That thing. I have to say, it was rather an unfortunate series of events, something of an accident, but he did take it all awfully badly. Rather rude if I say so myself.”

“What? What are you talking about?! ” Lup demands, tapping the glass hard with the tip of the umbrastaff.

The voice sighs, exasperated, and then says, in a peevish tone.

“So rude, the both of you. You know what, I don’t think I will tell you anything! Ha!”

And then the light flutters and is out.

Lup screams in frustration, hitting the empty soul jar so hard it shatters into tiny pieces.

“Lup…” Barry mutters from behind her, wisely not touching her, and Lup takes a deep breath.

“I’m ok,” she lies, willing it to be true. So it happened to be a ghost of someone her little brother killed, or whatever. Big deal. They’d both had eventful lives. It just bothered her because… it was one more unsolved mystery to do with him, wasn’t it?

“Let’s just get this job over with,” Lup says darkly, “we have to find Miller sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” Barry agrees, his voice annoyingly concerned.

In the end, they do find Miller, but not before their mystery second team does.

In fact, they enter the big room where the main action is supposed to happen in the middle of a battle. There is a giant spookbot powered by multiple spirits, Miller screaming something that can’t be heard over the din of multiple voices of the spirits, machinery being broken, footsteps that cause the whole building to shudder and spells flying.

Lup notes a big human guy clinging to the big robot’s arm and trying to hit it with an axe at the same time, not very effectively, and a dwarf in a glaring hawaiian shirt lying on the floor.

“Merle, stop napping and get exorcising!” the human shouts, earning a middle finger from the prone dwarf. Ah, must be the cleric.

“Do we help them or?” Barry asks, and Lup turns to him with a shrug.

“Might as well? They seem to be doing what we’d be doing? We can sort out who’s up to what later, right?” she suggests, feeling a grin take over her face.

Barry gives her a knowing look.

“You just want to fight the big robot, huh?” he says.

“Aww, like you don’t?” she replies, and then they are off. “But I’m calling dibs, you go see to the cleric and if he’s going to be any help?”

The big robot, or golem or whatever they’d decide to call it in their eventual report, is pretty tenacious. It is positively crawling with spirits, so even though several of its jars are broken, and smaller spirits were leaking out and dissolving from cracks in the structure, new ones keep filling the glass tube veins powering the giant.

Well, more blasting to do, Lup thinks and gets to it.

She notices the robot swinging it’s arm towards a wall, intending to squash the human clinging to it, and fires a spell at its knee that instead caused it to stagger.

The human keeps hacking at the robot, not seeming to even notice how close to death he’d been. He’s… growling? Now she’s looking closer, he’s also exceptionally hairy and has cute fluffy ears with pointy tips. Ah well.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lup can see Barry crouching over the cleric, presumably administering a quick healing potion. As much fun as she is having, they could probably use all the help they can to take this thing down.

Meanwhile, she keeps casting spells at it and for looking for weak points, trying to figure out what makes it tick so she can stop it. Multiple jars, check, seemingly endless supply of souls, check, a big shiny stone set in the middle of it’s chest, BINGO.

“Hey, wolf boy!” Lup shouts, and the man finally turns towards her, and even at this distance she can see he has yellow eyes. She points to the glowing stone.

“Get that and you’ll stop it, probably!” she shouts.

The wolf man hesitates a moment, gives a brief pat to the arm he’d been clinging to, and then starts scaling the big robot in an admirable fashion. Lup is a bit jealous, it looks like a good time.

“Go go wolf boy!” she shouts, and then shoots a fire spell at the robot as it makes to squash the wolf-man like an insect.

Instead, the robot turns towards her, raises a clunky arm and shoots out a beam of light that sizzles as it meets the air.

“Lup!” Barry shouts in warning, even as she rolls away to get out the laser beam’s range, smelling burnt cloth as it just misses her.

There is a second shout of her name, seeming to echo Barry’s but in a different, impossibly familiar voice, along with multiple running footsteps approaching her.

No. She thinks, turning on instinct and raising her staff. It’s not possible. How dare anyone! How dare!

She only misses because Kravitz has the sense to tackle her idiot brother to the ground before Lup blows his head off with a fireball.

In the moment, she only has a moment to register the surprise turning to “oh shit” on his face and a sort of dark leathery blur, before something hits the back of her head hard and everything goes dark.

She wakes some time later to a blinding headache and unpleasantly loud voices.

“Ow, shut up,” she mutters, and some of the voices go quiet, at least.

Despite it seeming like a bad idea, she opens her eyes to squint, and is greeted by an unflattering angle of Barry’s face, peering down at her in concern.

“Hiya,” she whispers. “Barry, I thought I saw…!” she begins with rising urgency as the memories of just before she got beaned in the head filter back.

“Oh, yeah, that,” he replies in a strained voice, and she realizes the arm that isn’t cradling her head in his lap is aimed out with a wand in it. She follows the line of fire, and her eyes go wide despite the light still hurting them.

“Hey Lup,” the can’t-possibly-be-her-brother says, the smile on his face as strained as Barry’s voice had been. “I’m… not dead. Kinda.”

Lup stares at him. Looks at Barry. Notes the tall dark half-elf in black leather hovering aggressively just behind not-Taako. Squints at him.

“What the hell. Also, aren’t you the goth neighbour. Whatshisname, Krakow?”

“Kravitz,” Barry says.

“That’s my boyfriend,” not-Taako adds, and makes a move to get closer that is aborted by Barry making a warning noise and the tip of his wand beginning to glow ominously.

“Oh for… it’s me! I, yeah, I got killed by Sazed’s fucking rebound vampire boyfriend, and then when I finally got myself sorted you’d gone and disappeared off the face of the earth… Lup, do I have to tell everyone your embarrassing childhood secrets because I swear I will! Just, I just want to see she’s ok?”

The last he says to Barry, the entreaty undercutting the threat of before, and it kinda breaks Lup’s heart to hear him sound like that, in the voice that makes him sound like a kid, like it was when it was just the two of them against the world.

“I’m ok,” she says, instinctively, in the moment just knowing this has to be her brother. The story is a lot, but weirder things have happened, probably.

Barry’s still frowning though, not entirely convinced.

“And you’re… what now, a vampire?”

“Yes! That’s what I’ve been telling you!” Taako says and shows off his fangs for emphasis.

Barry raises an eyebrow.

Taako looks affronted.

“You think I’d hurt my sister? What the fuck dude!”

He’s actually starting to look genuinely pissed off. At least until the guy in leather steps forward and leans down to pat his shoulder awkwardly. As he does, a small raven pendant swings forward, and Lup narrows her eyes. A follower of the raven queen dating an undead, really? If this really is Taako she’s going to have Words with him…

Taako takes a deep breath.

“Ok, I’m doing it. Remember the time when we sneaked into that wedding party, spiked the punch with moonglow liquor and then you charmed the band and made them play What’s New Pussycat seven times in a row?”

“That was you!” Lup protests.

Taako squints, his face going considering.

“Huh. Maybe it was. But you definitely set the wedding canopy on fire,” he grinned, an unholy sparkle in his familiar gold flecked eyes. “What was her name, the bride there, Neve? Remember how she had to beat the flames out of her dress? Served her right.”

Lup shakes her head at the memory. They’d been so young and stupid. It had been funny at the time though, especially sloshed on moonglow.

“What did she _do_?” Barry mutters above her, and Lup glances up at him and makes a small handwavy gesture.

“Had shit taste in partners,” Taako answers for her, his voice acerbic.

“Oh, she just dumped me for some dude called Blitz,” Lup explained airily. “In hindsight not a great loss.”

“Ah.” Barry replies. “So she did deserve it.”

Lup gets her elbows under herself and rises gingerly, her head aching but not too badly, to glance briefly around the room.

The big robot is collapsed in one corner of the big room, one of its arms completely detached from the body and the rest battered and dark, the souls clearly back where they belong on the astral plane.

Miller is nowhere to be seen, but the rest of the unknown intruders are there, sort of hovering behind Taako and the big goth guy in leather who is still holding onto him protectively.

Well. Well.

“You’re… you’re really Taako?” Lup asks, and she barely cares or notices the crack in her voice. It does look like him, complete with all the tiny expressions flickering over his face right this moment.

“Yeah.” He says, and sniffs, trying to sound his usual supercilious self and failing. “Duh.”

“Well, come here you dumbass,” she replies, getting into a roughly sitting position right before he falls on his knees and then they have a good, long old-fashioned sibling hug to end all sibling hugs.

There may be tears, but that is kind of par for the course.

Besides, Barry is crying enough to mask any quiet sniffling from other quarters, sweet little crybaby that he is, Lup thinks fondly as she eventually detaches herself just enough to get a good look at her brother, kind-of returned from the dead.

He looks… slightly different. Kinda greyish and glowy at the same time.

“I can’t believe you let yourself get killed, jeez,” she tells him, voice only wobbling a little.

Taako pouts.

“Hey, I didn’t expect Sazed to hook up with some count Dracula wannabe… don’t think those idiots meant to do it either, it was some idiot revenge plot of theirs that got out of hand. Or something.” He smiled wanly. “I can say, from experience after I just woke up… the bloodlust is pretty strong.”

Lup considers this.

“Oh.” She says. “Did you get him? Sazed?”

“Yeah,” he says and makes a face. “But, you know, that’s the first and last person I took enough blood from to kill. It was kinda.” Another face, the sort of scrunchy expression he used to make at badly made food, and Lup can’t help a small chuckle escaping her.

“He definitely deserved it,” she says, just in case Taako is feeling any guilt about it.

“Hell yeah,” he replies immediately, though she’s not fully convinced.

She hugs him again, just because she can, hard enough that she expects him to protest that she’s crushing him, but he doesn’t say anything, just holds her back sort of gingerly.

“You died,” Lup whispers, soft enough that it’s just for them, “it fucking sucked.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he replies, just as quietly, and she sighs, feeling some tension bleed out of her with the exhalation of her.

Vampire or not, her brother is back.

“So, um, should we go after Miller?” someone asks in the background, and is immediately hushed by another unfamiliar voice, telling him to “have some tact Magnus.”

Taako looks up, glancing behind himself and pointing a finger gun at the big hairy guy who’d been fighting the robot earlier.

“Yeah Magnus, you’re still in my black books for hitting my sister with a big magic stone. Can’t believe you just lobbed that at her!”

The big man makes a startling impression of a kicked puppy.

“But she shot at you!” he protests. “And I had the stone in my hand and all… I didn’t even know she was your sister!”

He notices her looking and gives her and apologetic wave and a sheepish grin.

“Nice to meet you m’am, sorry about hitting you with the magic stone.”

“Whatever, Magnus,” Taako tells him, still glaring.

“What happened to the stone, anyway,” the dwarf cleric asks, scratching at his beard. “Lucretia wanted us to get it, didn’t she?”

Everyone looks around, but there is no trace of the big glowing magic stone.

“Well, that’s weird,” Barry says a bit too nonchalantly. Barry with his many big pockets on his big denim jacket, Lup thinks and grins inwardly. Wait. Lucretia?

“Lucretia?” she says aloud, startled, meeting Taako’s eyes.

He makes a quick gesture in their own system that means. _Yes_ and _I’ll explain later_. And maybe, Lup thinks with a little burst of surprised happiness, there will be another person who isn’t as forever lost as she’d thought. Damn, _Lucretia_ …

“Who’s that?” Barry, ever observant, asks her quietly as Taako’s new friends start bickering as they look for the missing magic item.

“An old friend. Some stuff happened and… I’ll tell you later, it’s a long story,” she mutters, finding herself turning as if drawn towards her brother, currently being dragged around by the cleric and the wolf dude. There he is, looking irritated and supercilious and gloriously alive. Undead. Whatever.

Lup grins, until her cheeks ache with it. 

“So, I guess we don’t have to bring him back, huh?” Barry says behind her, and she’s not sure if he sounds just a tiny bit disappointed under the relief.

Lup reaches back to pat his hand consolingly.

“Think of it like this, now you can develop all your very illegal experiments in peace, without any pressure or time limit. Besides… you know vampires don’t die right? We’re not just going to leave my bro _alone_ , now are we?” she says and turns back to give him some of that smile too.

Barry grins back at her, just as bright but soppier.

“Oh, I do love you,” he says.

*  
*  
*

Question 1: why is Magnus in human form if it's a full moon?  
Answer: Maybe lunar eclipses do weird things to werewolves? Maybe he ate a special potion? IDK.   
Question 2: Wouldn't Kravitz notice his boyfriend and the woman living next door look very similar?  
Answer: Somehow they never met face to face. Different schedules? Lup being paranoid? 

(I realized these things late and I have had this mostly finished for AGES, just go with it please x'D)

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow, a lot of it ended up being an exploration of loss and grief instead, with some action and a tiny bit of domesticity sprinkled in. So, uh, tread carefully if you might react to that. No permanent/total major chara death here (just being turned into a, you know, undead creature), but a couple of minor charas do get it.


End file.
